Japan leads US, Europe in mobile browser and app use

Oct 10, 2010 by Dirk Singer

Comscore’s latest crop of data about mobile phone usage shows significant behavioural differences between European, American and Japanese users. For example:

US users are far more likely to access a social network site or blog (21.3% vs 17% for Japan and 14.7% for Europe). While on the other hand, Europeans lead when it comes to listening to music (thanks Spotify!), capturing video (a quarter of us do so apparently) and playing games.

Two stats however that show how mobile networks and usage is further along the curve in Japan. First of all, mobile TV never really caught on in Western Europe or the US – Comscore shows that around 5% in Europe and the US either watch TV and / or video on their phones…which means this % watch video as I can’t think of anyone I know who uses their mobile as a portable television. In Japan however the figure is one in five (22%).

Secondly, browser and application use is much higher in Japan than in Europe or the US. In Japan, almost 6/10 use mobile browsers compared to 1/3 in the US and 1/4 in Europe. So for Japanese users at least, the mobile handset really is on the way to becoming their primary Internet device.